DANIEL LERNER

DANIEL LERNER (1906-ca. 1942)

            He was born in Ozdutich (Ozyutychi), Volhynia.  He attended religious elementary school, studied independently in the synagogue study hall, and continued in a Jewish secular school.  In 1928 he graduated from a high school in Vilna and went on to study at Vilna University.  In 1935 he became a YIVO research student in Vilna.  His research was on: “Di yidishe gezelshaftlekhkeyt in vilne in 1905” (Organized Jewish society in Vilna in 1905), which was published in A yor arbet in der aspirantur afn nomen fun d”r tsemekh shabad baym yidishn visnshaflekhn institut (A year’s work in the Dr. Cemach Szabad Training Division of the Yiddish Scientific Institute) (Vilna, 1937), pp. 25-31, and later it appeared in Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) (Vilna) 10.1-2 (August-September 1936), pp. 25-31.  On December 1, 1938, at the completion ceremony for the third term of YIVO research students, Lerner read his paper, “Bashraybung fun a yidish shtetl in mizrekh-poyln” (Description of a Jewish town in eastern Poland).  In addition, he wrote a monograph on his hometown of Ozdutich (several works by him may be found in manuscript in the archives of YIVO in New York).  He published articles in Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper) and Foroys (Onward) in Warsaw.  He was also an active Bundist.  In 1939 he became the manager of the Jewish school in Ozdutich.  He was later killed in the Kovel (Kovle) ghetto.

Sources: Yivo-bleter (Vilna) 10.1-2 (August-September 1936), p. 1; A yor arbet in der aspirantur afn nomen fun d”r tsemekh shabad baym yidishn visnshaflekhn institut (A year’s work in the Dr. Cemach Szabad Training Division of the Yiddish Scientific Institute) (Vilna, 1937), p. 1; Yedies fun yivo (Vilna) 5-6 (75-76) (June 1938), pp. 1-3; information from Dr. Max Weinreich, Khayim Giniger, and M. Kligsberg—all in New York—Dr. Avrom Kahan in Chicago, and Leybl Tentser in Montreal, Canada.

Zaynvl Diamant